Review of Vampire Academy

First published in 2007.
Page count: 332 pages.
Personal rating: 3/5

In short

Vampires. Good vampires studying at a school, the academy mentioned in the title, whilst their future guardians are being trained in protecting them from the bad vampires.
Our heroine enters the picture when she and her best friend, Lissa, are being hauled back to the academy after they ran away for a reason not immediately explained.
Whilst they find their way in the social scene again, events happen around them to think being back might be as bad as they tried to tell.

My two cents

This novel brings in a theme of bad versus good vampires and creates a world where the good vampires need protecting.
Being a good vampire comes with magic and a slight tolerance for light, while being bad you are just plain evil and the sun will kill you (as the more common vampire).
A nice angle, but it isn't as refreshing as I thought it would be.
I liked the main character though, Rose Hathaway is my kind of girl, a reckless, sexy girl who knows the power she has over the opposite sex, but still innocent enough to be scared of her own powers.
The story line was a bit predictable, I had pinpointed the doer a long time before everything got unraveled, but it entertained me and sometimes that's enough.

The Farm

First published in 2006.
Page count: 394 pages
Personal rating: 1 star

In short
The Farm explores the legend of a 200-year-old circuit riding preacher who pays a visit to the tiny mountain community of Solom. At the heart of the story is the relationship between a mother and daughter who are new to the town and are just discovering its strange history and dark secrets.

My two cents
The farm was a novel a couldn't finish. Not that it was THAT bad, but it just wasn't my scene. I have read a large chunk of it, but then with giving birth and caring for my little girl I just couldn't sacrifice the time of day when she was asleep to finish up this novel. Time has become very precious for me at the moment and I only want to fill it up with the best of the best.
The farm is what you call a next door novel. Someone you know might have written it, I might have written it. It lacks the editing and supervision of a good agent.
Also it lacks a smooth pace in which events take place. It hops from here to there and back again.
The story in itself didn't appeal so much to me either.
It seems like I'm hauling it down severely, but judging from the score it got on Goodreads, I think it a very subjective opinion. You can't do good by everyone.

I think my biggest mistake was to expect some kind of Jack Ketchum story.